City mulls banning Happy Meal toys

San Francisco  San Francisco has a long history of bold public health and environmental stances, going after everything from plastic bags in grocery stores to cigarettes to sugary drinks.

The latest target: Ronald McDonald.

A proposed city ordinance would ban McDonald’s from putting toys in Happy Meals unless it adds fruit and vegetable portions and limits calories. The proposal would apply to all restaurants, but the focus has been on McDonald’s and its iconic Happy Meals.

Supervisor Eric Mar said he proposed the law to protect the health of his constituents, but McDonald’s has waged an aggressive fight to block the measure. A battery of McDonald’s Corp. executives showed up at city hall to argue that the legislation is a heavy-handed effort that threatens the company’s decades-old business model and the free choice of its customers.

Y'know, though, I've often wondered how many tons of plastic happy meal toys add to landfills every year. They can't be recycled and the "toys" are mostly junk that parents sneak into the trash after their kids have gone to bed.